This interdisciplinary course explores the gendered nature of war and peace. The conventional wisdom surrounding war suggests that it is a quintessentially masculine realm, missing the complex and varied roles that both men and women play in waging war and forging peace. Students will be exposed to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding the relationships between gender, armed conflict, and peacebuilding with the goal of developing analytic tools for considering war and peace across both time and space.

Readings will be drawn from history, sociology, anthropology, international relations, literature, diaries and memoirs, and the popular press. Course assessment will be based on participation in discussion, written reflections on readings, one presentation, and a final paper analyzing the gendered dimensions of a specific conflict or peace-building effort. Efforts will be made to incorporate all four International Studies subplans.

As a result of the course, students will be able to:

Demonstrate insight into the central themes in the study of gender in peace and conflict research.
Be aware of different approaches to and perspectives on the gendered aspects of war and peace in existing scholarly knowledge.
Identify institutional actors, processes and efforts to address the gendered nature of armed violence and respond to the demands for building more equal post-war societies.
Design and carry-out an analytical writing task, using a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, on a topic relevant to the course.

Course Requirements:

Class participation, three written reflections, group case study, and individual final project.

Syllabi are available to current LSA students. IMPORTANT: These syllabi are provided to give students a general idea about the courses, as offered by LSA departments and programs in prior academic terms. The syllabi do not necessarily reflect the assignments, sequence of course materials, and/or course expectations that the faculty and departments/programs have for these same courses in the current and/or future terms.